NASA Selects Elon Musk's SpaceX for 2022 Psyche Asteroid Mission

The Psyche mission currently is targeted to launch in July 2022 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

NASA Selects Elon Musk's SpaceX for 2022 Psyche Asteroid Mission

Psyche mission currently is targeted to launch in July 2022

Highlights
  • SpaceX will provide launch services for NASA's Psyche mission
  • It would journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid
  • The asteroid orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter
Advertisement

NASA has selected Elon Musk-run SpaceX to provide launch services for the agency's Psyche mission that would journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.

The Psyche mission currently is targeted to launch in July 2022 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the US space agency said in a statement late Friday.

The total cost for NASA to launch Psyche and the secondary payloads is approximately $117 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs.

The Psyche asteroid is considered unique, as it appears to largely be made of the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet - one of the building blocks of our solar system.

Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets, including Earth, scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachably far below the planet's rocky mantles and crusts.

Because we cannot see or measure Earth's core directly, the mission to Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets, said NASA.

The launch of Psyche will include two secondary payloads: Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE), which will study the Martian atmosphere, and Janus, which will study binary asteroids.

NASA's Launch Services Programme at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage the SpaceX launch service, said the US space agency.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Further reading: NASA, Elon Musk, SpaceX
Oppo Enco Free, Enco W31 Wireless Headphones Launched in India; Oppo Kash Financial Services Platform Debuts
Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Others Accused of Using Forced Chinese Labour
Facebook Gadgets360 Twitter Share Tweet Snapchat LinkedIn Reddit Comment google-newsGoogle News

Advertisement

Follow Us
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Trending Products »
Latest Tech News »